Project description
Targeting lung cancer relapse with nanotech innovation
Lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer death worldwide, with surgery often involving high rates of complications and repeated recurrences along resection margins. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the RESPIRE project helps a pioneering scientist design a biodegradable nanofibrous patch that delivers chemotherapy directly into lung tissue. The patch, using the technologies of electrospinning and electrospray, will mimic the mechanical behaviour of the lung and release drugs in a controlled fashion. Following instruction in MIT’s AI-facilitated materials design and UTRGV's drug-release modelling, the fellow will return to UNIPI for biological verification. With nanotechnology, medicine, and engineering, RESPIRE hopes to reduce the relapse of lung cancer and accelerate the production of targeted, implantable treatments.
Objective
Pulmonary cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide. Surgery is associated with high morbidity and operative mortality. One of the main causes of the poor survival rate is cancer relapse at the surgical resection margins. Thus, developing a strategy to minimize the local recurrence rate of lung cancer efficiently is greatly needed. Nanotechnology-assisted approaches, such as nanoparticles (NPs) and nanofibers (NFs) obtained via electrospinning could enable novel strategies to fabricate better performing implantable devices, including localized drug delivery systems. Many working parameters affect the final outcomes in electrospinning and different fibrous architectures can be generated, much is still to be understood to precisely control, and ultimately predict the mechanical, physico-chemical, and bioactive properties of the resulting meshes, which are essential in pulmonary tissues. The Postdoctoral Fellowship Researcher (PFR) has studied biodegradable fibers as drug delivery systems in her Ph.D. and Post Doc and herein aims to develop a biodegradable nanofibrous patch based on elastin (i.e. the native component of the pulmonary tissues) containing chemotherapeutics via electrospinning/electrospray. To achieve this ambitious goal, the PFR needs to learn multiscale materials design and artificial intelligence to precisely match the mechanical properties of lung tissue, which will be addressed during the outgoing phase at USI. The PFR will also investigate the encapsulation of chemotherapy and immunotherapy agents into electrosprayed NPs at UNIPI and CNR-IPCF (i.e. secondment), model drug-release mechanisms at USI, and analyze drug-release effectiveness using an in vitro model at CNR-IPCF, with the results subsequently used to support the biological assessment during the returning phase at UNIPI. The multidisciplinary approach (engineering, biology, materials and medical sciences), will accelerate the development of innovative clinically oriented prototypes and will contribute to the ER’s scientific and personal.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
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CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-GF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01
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56126 Pisa
Italy
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.